N.L. mink stink plan praised

The province's order for a mink farm to stop using chicken offal as part of composting restrictions is a good first step in reducing the smell from the property, says a tourism operator in the eastern Newfoundland community of Heart's Delight.

Jim Jackson, who runs Ocean Delight Cottages, for several years has been complaining about the stench and flies from the Viking Fur Ltd. mink farm in the nearby community of Cavendish.   

The Environment Department announced Wednesday it won't allow the Viking Fur to compost chicken offal, where the province says most of the stink comes from, and a dozen existing compost piles will be capped. The offal is used to feed thousands of breeding mink.       

Jackson said the smell from the mink alone was bad enough, but when the farm started using chicken offal, the situation got worse.

"It increased it to a larger distance. Like now, instead of going out maybe two kilometres, now it goes five kilometres. It goes all the way to one end of Heart's Delight, which is probably about three or four or five kilometres, all the way to the other side of Cavendish, which is another five kilometres or so. It definitely made the situation worse."

The government has hired a consultant from Ontario to examine how to deal with the smell from the mink farm's own compost, which includes mink carcasses and manure.